US tells Pakistan to do more to check Taliban ahead of Gilani visit

“What we do need to do to is to look hard how the Taliban is regrouping, why the Taliban is fighting in the way they are now,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at a joint press conference with Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith.

Rice said there was an uptick in the terrorism, not just against forces, but against the Afghan people.

“In that regard, everybody needs to do more ...Pakistan does need to do more,” Rice told reporters in Perth.

Backing Rice’s demand, Smith said there is no doubt that the current international hotbed of terrorism is in that area, is in the Pakistan-Afghan border area.

“We don’t believe that can be regarded simply as a bilateral matter between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the Australian minister said. “We do need to engage Pakistan more in a dialogue.”

The comments came ahead of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s meeting with President George W Bush in Washington where the Pakistani leader is expected to face a grilling on Islamabad’s efforts to check the Taliban which US officials say have been ineffective.

There are growing fears in Pakistan that the United States, which has 35,000 troops in Afghanistan, might take unilateral action against al-Qaeda and Taliban in tribal areas and go for “hot pursuit” of militants.

Australia has 1,060 soldiers in Afghanistan, the most of non-NATO countries, and won’t increase its troops, Smith said.

Rice also defended the continued detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay. She said the Bush administration wanted to close the detention centre but “the problem is there are dangerous people there who cannot be returned and put among innocent populations.”

Violence by Taliban has escalated in Afghanistan since 2006 and on July 11 Indian embassy in Kabul was targeted in a suicide attack which killed 60 people, including a Brigadier-ranked defence attache and an IFS officer.